EDC 102h F10 Early School Influences - JasonA

Jason Allard

EDC 102H

September 20, 2010

My Early School Setting

Leo A. Savoie Elementary School is located in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It is one of

six elementary schools in the area and is where I learned my ABC’s and multiplication tables

starting back in 1995. I attended the small school for six years until I moved on to the bigger

and more intimidating middle school across the city. I believe it was the most important

educational influence in my life because it laid the groundwork for my entire educational

career. My time at Savoie raised me from a fresh kindergartener to a classroom tested middle

schooler who could break down even the hardest multiplication table.


Even today as a college student at URI I can still recite the names of every teacher I

have had since kindergarten. Rather than accept this fact as a show of my amazing memory, I

attribute it to the profound impact my educators had on my life. I recall being in the fourth

grade and learning that I had the most difficult English teacher this side of the Mississippi. It

was rare if a student ever received higher than an 80 on a paper. The assignments were

relentless and ranged from biographies to creative writing. The workload may have been

tough for someone in the fourth grade, but I grew tremendously as a writer and still think of

her whenever I write.


In addition to the challenging work, I was graced with some of my best friends I am

still close with today. My friends were every bit as interested in learning as I was, which led to

a kind of feedback loop while at school. My friends would motivate me to do better as I’d see

them succeed, and the teachers would set higher goals as a result. I never experienced any

conflicts because the faculty created a real sense of community, especially as a fourth and fifth

grader. It was at this time when we were allowed to join the Savoie floor hockey league where

we received our own jerseys and team names. This definitely brought everyone closer and

taught us the thrills of victory and the agony of defeat. Although I belonged to a very

welcoming environment there was not much diversity. However, this changed once I began

my schooling at Woonsocket Middle School.


At the time, the middle school was the largest in New England, and rightly so. The

school was actually a combination of the old middle school and high school that were literally

merged together. This made for a labyrinth of a school, with staircases leading to nowhere and

long retired fallout shelter signs adorning the old brick and plaster walls. My stay at the school

for three years was a humbling experience. I was introduced to kids who were much less

fortunate than I and kids who possessed some serious street smarts. This diverse setting helped

develop my social skills more than anything. I learned a great deal and will never forget my

teachers, but it was the setting and varied student body that helped me grow more as an

individual than a scholar.


When I think back to what made me the great student I am today I think about my time

at Leo A Savoie Elementary. But when I think back to where I learned to respect where

people come from I think about walking down the old hallways of the middle school. Since

those days, a new one has been built and the old home of my youth stands abandoned nearby

like a monument to the city I’m from. I wonder if the students in the new middle school will

learn as much I did. It takes a good balance between school skills and social skills to make an

individual a fully functioning member of society, and I like to think I matched that balance

through my early education at Savoie to my time spent at Woonsocket Middle School.